While striving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the City of Rotterdam in the Netherlands focuses its narrative on making buildings, industry and transport cleaner and more efficient, which are concrete and tangible issues that the public can easily rally behind.
www.huffingtonpost.com/...rotterdam...
For one in three Germans, the car is still a status symbol. But due to running costs and the scarcity of parking spaces, more and more city dwellers are giving up their own car. Is it worth relying completely on car sharing?
Source: WISO tip: Car sharing - ZDFmediathek
Keywords:
Construction and operating costs, CarSharing, DE-News, Mobility
The Federal Cabinet today approved the draft of a timber construction initiative presented by Federal Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz and Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir. This strategy of the Federal Government is intended to strengthen the use of wood as a sustainable raw material in the construction sector and to ensure more climate protection, resource efficiency and faster construction. With eight fields of action, from the exemplary role of the federal government and the strengthening of research and innovation, to securing skilled labour and knowledge transfer, to securing the supply of raw materials, the use of wood is to be significantly improved and the timber construction quota increased by 2030.
Obstacles are removed and equal competitive opportunities for the use of a wide variety of building materials are ensured. The fields of action of the timber construction initiative describe priority topics and approaches to solutions that are implemented by the relevant federal ministries under their own responsibility and subject to the budget funds made available.
About seven per cent of the CO2-emissions in Germany come from the construction and modernisation of buildings. Since trees in the growth phase CO2 bind, the carbon is permanently stored with the wood used in the building. At the same time, wood is suitable for serial and modular building. With this construction method, shorter production and construction times are achieved by means of prefabrication, which means that affordable housing is created more quickly.
Klara Geywitz, Federal Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Construction: To create more affordable and good housing in which people feel comfortable, we want to improve serial and modular construction. Wood is particularly suitable here. It is light, versatile, durable and reusable. The wooden roof trusses, half-timbered constructions and wooden houses of earlier generations demonstrate this. At the same time, local wood is on our doorstep. Using this saves transport costs, increases regional added value and improves the local economic cycle.
Furthermore, wood is popular. It creates a good indoor climate, people feel comfortable in buildings made of wood. Countries like Switzerland, Austria, Sweden or Finland show how well wood can be used in modern buildings. With the timber construction initiative, we show the great diversity of this raw material and want to strengthen the sustainable use of wood in our country.
Cem Özdemir, Federal Minister of Agriculture and Food: The forest is our natural ally in the fight against the climate crisis - it extracts the climate-damaging CO2 and binds carbon in the wood. Our goal is to use wood for as long as possible. Every new wooden building is a CO2-In comparison to other construction methods, up to 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions can be saved - a real win-win situation for the climate and our forest. We urgently need this, because the consequences of the climate crisis have already weakened and damaged our forest. The timber construction initiative also helps to ensure that the wood from the necessary forest conversion and from forest damage is utilised in a high-quality and sustainable manner. This helps the forest owners and the many businesses in the forestry and timber industry, especially in rural areas..
Worldwide, but also in Europe and Germany, the last few years have seen impressive buildings made of wood and in wood hybrid construction emerged. Nevertheless, the timber construction quota in Germany remains below the possible level. While a rate of 26 percent has already been achieved in single- and two-family house construction throughout Germany, it is still below five percent in multi-storey residential construction. One of the aims of the timber construction initiative is to tap this potential. At the same time, the timber construction initiative sends a strong signal for the necessary transformation and decarbonisation of the economy.
Various dialogue formats with the federal states and associations are planned to implement the timber construction initiative. An initial kick-off event will be held in Berlin on 10 October 2023 with the participation of the two Federal Ministers Klara Geywitz and Cem Özdemir.
A core element of this is the establishment of a regular "Federal Timber Construction Round Table" for the transfer of knowledge and exchange of experience with the Länder and municipal umbrella organisations.
The detailed timber construction initiative and further information can be found here:
www.bmwsb.bund.de/holzbauinitiative
Source: PM 21 June 2023
Keywords:
Procurement, CO2-neutral, DE-News, Funding, Wood construction, Climate emergency, Climate protection, NaWaRohs, Sustainable management, Affordable housing, Quarters, Settlements, Environmental policy, Housing
Schleiden-Gemünd / Nettersheim, 05.04.2019. Experiencing the starry sky at night with twinkling celestial bodies is a special experience for many people that is now only possible in a few places in Germany - one of these places is the Eifel National Park. Since 2010, a regional initiative has been successfully campaigning for the protection of the night sky and the preservation of the natural night landscape - in 2014, this was followed by the provisional designation as the first "International Dark Sky Park" in Germany. Now this initiative can look forward to the final recognition as International Star Park Eifel National Park. On the grounds of the observatory of the astronomy workshop "Stars without Borders" in the Eifel National Park, Dr. Andreas Hänel, highest representative of the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) in Germany, presented the certificate of recognition to Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser and the head of the Eifel National Park Administration Dr. Michael Röös. The distinction of being a protected area of the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) is a title that only a few regions worldwide can use to promote themselves, in Germany there are only four. For the Eifel National Park, which turned 15 this year, this recognition is a nice "birthday present".
The Eifel National Park is a refuge of undisturbed night skies and has been recognised as a star park since 2014. "Rarely does a topic offer so many win-win situations," said Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Esser when handing over the certificate. She emphasised the many benefits of protecting the starry night sky: "Dark nights have a positive effect on health, conserve resources and thus help to protect the climate. Darkness is important for many nocturnal animal species, especially insects. Artificial light at night can be a serious threat to them." For North Rhine-Westphalia, he said, the final recognition of the Eifel National Park as the only star park in the entire western half of Germany was an outstanding honour. "The final recognition of the Eifel National Park as a star park helps to raise the profile of our state as a nature destination as well," the state environment minister summed up.
The initiative goes back to the astronomer and lighting consultant Harald Bardenhagen from Cologne, who managed to convince the region of the value of the starry sky. Initially, Bardenhagen found enthusiastic comrades-in-arms in the administration of the Eifel National Park, the district administration of Euskirchen, the national park towns of Schleiden and Heimbach, and those responsible for the Vogelsang property. However, until the final recognition as a Dark Sky Park, further efforts on different levels were necessary: In the design of the outdoor lighting to reduce the artificial light in the National Park and the directly surrounding villages or in the development of tourist offers for stargazing for the general public. The North Eifel Nature Park, in which the Eifel National Park is embedded, has also been intensively involved in this process.
Dr. Michael Röös, Head of the Eifel National Park Authority, thanked Mr. Bardenhagen for his unprecedented commitment against light pollution and his dedication to protecting the night sky and making it possible to experience it. "With the final recognition of the Eifel National Park as an International Star Park, we have reached an important milestone with the region and at the same time taken a pioneering role in the protection of darkness in North Rhine-Westphalia."
"Together we will significantly expand this unique selling point", Manfred Poth, Chairman of the North Eifel Nature Park, was pleased to say. With the innovative project application "Under the Tent of Stars - Eifel by Night", the nature park was able to prevail in the "Nature Park Competition.2021.NRW" of the NRW Ministry of the Environment and, for the first time in its history, took first place. "With the associated 400,000 euros in funding, the protection of darkness through public relations work, through educational offers of sustainable development and tourist infrastructure projects in the Eifel will experience a significant further development," explained Poth. More than 40 project partners, including the Eifel National Park Authority, want to participate in the realisation.
Left:
www.nationalpark-eifel.de/de/nationalpark-erleben/sternenpark/
Source: PM Nationalpark Eifel.de from 5.4.2019
Keywords:
Awards, Procurement, DE-News, Artificial light, Near-natural open space design, News Blog NRW, Social / Culture, Transition Town, Wildlife/animal friendly construction, Aesthetics / Architecture / Building Culture, Ecology
The Ministry of Energy plans to increase the performance contribution for solar power plants up to 30 kilowatts in the coming year. This is intended to enable significantly more private roofs to be used for solar power generation in the future.
The increase in subsidies for 2021 from an additional 46 million Swiss francs to then 422 million is intended to counteract the impending collapse in the addition of new PV systems caused by the Corona crisis.
Further information:
www.pv-magazine.de/2020/04/28/schweiz-will-erstmals-foerderung-fuer-kleinere-photovoltaik-anlagen-ab-april-2021-erhoehen
Keywords:
Renewable, Funding, Climate protection, News Blog Europe (without DE), News Blog Switzerland, PV, PlusEnergy house/settlement
